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LYNETTE "SQUEAKY" FROMME
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From the Fresno Bee, August 7, 1994:
Twenty-Five Years Later, She's Still Loyal to Him
Sandra Collins Lives Quietly in Hanford, Waiting for the Day She Can Visit Charles Manson
Tom Kertscher
Sandra Good once used a red-hot bobby pin to burn an X on her forehead, then used a needle to worsen the scars, all in a show of devotion to Charles Manson.
Twenty-five years later, Good is still devoted to Manson.
For the last three years, Good, who now goes by Sandra Collins, has been living quietly in the Central Valley, fighting to see the man convicted of masterminding the murders of seven people.
Collins wants so badly to see Manson she has sued state prison officials who, noting her record and closeness to Manson, have refused her visitation requests.
Collins is representing herself in a case filed two years ago that is still being volleyed on procedural matters.
In making her case to see Manson - who, according to a July 1993 court document, has had about 100 visitors since being transferred to the California State Prison-Corcoran in 1989 - Collins pointed out that she successfully completed a prison sentence and parole and that as a small, middle-aged woman, she poses no safety risk.
In court papers, she uses a cool tone and numerous legal citations.
But in conversation, Collins can quickly ignite.
"They're playing little political games," she said of state officials recently. "I don't know what they're afraid of . . . but they better get off it."
And, finally: "The longer they keep Manson from having his legal rights, and me, it is going to affect the whole state. . . . It's going to get so bad that people will be praying for death."
Collins' desire to see Manson burns so strong that she wrote to prison officials:
"You cannot know what it's like to have someone you respect and love vilified as the devil in the mass media for over two decades.
"I have known Charles Manson for more than 23 years. I am one of his oldest and closest friends. He has no relatives or close personal friends on his visiting list. His only visitors have been strangers who came to know him through the publicity.
"This is not a substitute for an established, long-term relationship. Furthermore, we have a son he hasn't seen except in pictures."
Sandra Collins was not one of the four people convicted with Manson of slaying pregnant actress Sharon Tate, grocery chain president Leno LaBianca and five others on Aug. 9 and 10, 1969.
But she did serve 10 years in prison and five on parole for conspiring to send threatening letters to 171 business leaders she characterized as "corporate polluters" and was convicted for her role in a jail escape.
Her place as one of the most devoted Manson Family members seems undisputed.
A 1987 book, "Manson: In His Own Words," said Manson kept pictures of two women - Collins and the would-be assassin of President Gerald Ford, Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme - in his cell and wrote to both women frequently.
And Vincent Bugliosi, the Manson case prosecutor whose book, "Helter Skelter," recounts the murders and the trial, said Collins and Fromme, who is serving a life prison term in Florida, are the only Manson Family members who haven't renounced him.
In fact, in conversation today, Collins still seems to idolize Manson.
"The man is wise," Collins told The Bee recently in her first newspaper interview since returning to California in February 1991. "He's deep. He's soul. He knows. He knows what's going on. . . . He knows more than everyone put together what's going on in this country."
At one point in the interview, Collins became agitated about the prison system's refusal to let her visit Manson.
"If I don't get my rights," she said, "you're next."
That echoed the Sandra Good of old.
When Manson was found guilty of the Tate-LaBianca murders, one of the Family members said, "There's a revolution coming, very soon."
And Sandra Good added, "You are next, all of you."
Yet, as angry as Collins can become, she insists she poses no risk to anyone.
She said her "you're next" comment, for instance, simply means that when a person is mistreated - as she believes she and Manson are by not being allowed to see each other - other people, even society as a whole, suffer.
"What you do to one person you do to yourself," she said.
Collins, now 50, lives in an apartment complex in Hanford and spends a lot of time with her companion, George Stimson, who has become something of a Manson follower. The scarred X is still visible on her forehead.
Hanford residents say they see Collins riding her bicycle, tending a garden or visiting the library with Stimson, who reportedly has been visiting Manson.
Collins, slight of build and soft of voice, appeared with Stimson on "The Bertice Berry Show" in February, maintaining Manson's innocence and calling him a good role model for young people.
And while Collins is generally polite and articulate in conversation, there are flashes of a temper that are startling.
On the Berry show, she showed her angry side, saying, "Twenty-five years of this total bullshit, total bullshit," in response to comments by Bugliosi.
Collins won't say how she supports herself. Her former landlord, who didn't know she had rented to a Manson Family member until being shown a newspaper story months later, said Collins told her she was a free-lance writer, but Collins wouldn't comment on that.
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